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# Launch Surfaces

Where to put Embody in front of people, with the framing tailored to each audience. **Concentration over spread** — pick two surfaces and hit them hard, not eight surfaces lukewarm.

## The Hero Asset

Every surface below assumes one piece of content exists: a 60–90 second screen recording where a TouchDesigner network builds itself from a sentence, then gets reverted, branched, and rebuilt — all in front of the camera. The storyboard for this video lives in [`docs/assets/demo-storyboard.md`](assets/demo-storyboard.md).

Without the video, every launch surface below is half as effective. Don't post anywhere until it exists.

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## Surface evaluations

### Derivative.ca forum

**Audience:** Working TouchDesigner artists. Most haven't tried an AI coding assistant yet. Many are skeptical of AI in creative work.

**Why it matters:** This is where TD users actually live. Brand recognition here translates directly into installs.

**Framing:** Don't lead with "MCP" or "AI agents." Lead with the demo video and a single sentence: *"I built this so I could stop typing operator names by hand."* Let the video do the work. Engage with replies generously and without defensiveness — the skeptics are the most important audience in the room because they're the ones who haven't already chosen a side.

**Risk:** Forum culture can be sensitive to anything that smells like marketing. Post once, post well, don't bump.

**Effort:** Low. Title + paragraph + video link.

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### MCP registries

Three to evaluate:

- **Smithery** (`smithery.ai`) — the most-trafficked MCP registry as of early 2026. Submission is a PR with a `smithery.yaml` describing the server.
- **mcp.run** — curated, narrower audience but higher signal.
- **awesome-mcp-servers** (GitHub list) — easiest submission, lowest individual return per submission, but compounds with the others.

**Audience:** Developers and AI tool builders looking for MCP servers to plug into Claude/Cursor. Almost zero overlap with the Derivative.ca forum.

**Why it matters:** This is the audience that *finds* tools by browsing registries. They're our second buyer profile after working TD artists — the technical artist who already lives in Cursor.

**Framing:** Different from the forum. Lead with capability and tool count: *"45 MCP tools for TouchDesigner. Build, wire, parameterize, and debug live networks from your AI assistant."* The video is supporting evidence, not the lede.

**Risk:** Easy to submit and forget. The registries are noisy — without a real description and a working install path, the listing is invisible.

**Effort:** Medium. Each registry has its own submission format. Worth doing all three in one sitting.

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### A tweet thread (X / Bluesky / Threads — pick one)

**Audience:** Whoever follows you and whoever they retweet to. Long tail on the right network.

**Why it matters:** Tweets are how the manifesto gets read. Thread = video at the top, manifesto excerpt as the body, link to the repo at the bottom.

**Framing:** First tweet is the brand line: *"Embody: create at the speed of thought."* Second tweet is the video. Third is one paragraph of the manifesto. Fourth is the install link. Don't try to explain the technology in the thread — that's what the click is for.

**Risk:** Posting on a network that's already moved on (X is the old guard; Bluesky has the design crowd; Threads is unclear in 2026). Pick the one where your TD-adjacent peers actually are.

**Effort:** Low if the manifesto and video already exist.

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### Show HN

**Audience:** Hacker News. Engineers, indie hackers, AI tool watchers. Almost no TD users.

**Why it matters:** Wrong audience for installs, right audience for *category recognition*. A successful Show HN puts "TouchDesigner + MCP" on the radar of people who decide what tools get covered.

**Framing:** *"Show HN: Embody — turn TouchDesigner into a network you can describe in plain English."* The post body should be the manifesto, lightly edited, with the video embedded near the top. Disclose openly that you're the author.

**Risk:** HN can be brutal to anything that looks like marketing. Lead with technical substance — TDN format, the externalization mechanism, the dual-thread MCP architecture. Make the post worth reading even if the reader will never install it.

**Effort:** Medium. Worth doing only after the forum and registries are live, so the comments can point people somewhere real.

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### Email to a small list of TD studios and artists

**Audience:** ~20 people you actually know who work in TD professionally.

**Why it matters:** Personal outreach converts an order of magnitude better than any public surface. These are also the people most likely to give you the case study or testimonial that anchors everything else.

**Framing:** No template. Write each one personally. Mention something specific you know they're working on, then: *"I built a thing I think you'd actually use. 90 seconds of video, then one link if you're curious."*

**Risk:** Time. This is the most effort per touch. But the conversion rate justifies it.

**Effort:** High but bounded. ~20 emails.

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## Recommended sequencing

Pick **two** of the above for the initial launch. The combination matters more than which two.

| Combo | Logic |
|---|---|
| **Forum + Personal email** (Recommended) | Hit the TD audience where they live, plus personal outreach to seed the case study. Lowest noise, highest signal, highest conversion. |
| **Forum + MCP registries** | Maximum reach with one writing session. Risks looking like a launch blast and getting tuned out. |
| **Tweet thread + Show HN** | Maximum *category* reach with zero TD-specific traction. Worth doing only after the forum and the case study exist, otherwise it's hype with no foundation. |

The other surfaces follow once the first two are live and you've learned which framing resonates. **Do not post to all six on the same day.** A category-defining brand isn't built in one launch — it's built by showing up consistently with one sharp message.

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## What to measure

Don't measure stars. Measure these:

1. **Did the demo video make a stranger try the install?** Trace one install back to one watch.
2. **Did at least one person quote the brand line back at you unprompted?** That's how you know the positioning landed.
3. **Did anyone confuse Embody with TWOZERO?** If yes, the differentiation isn't sharp enough yet — tighten.
4. **Did one TD studio agree to be the case study?** That's the asset that makes everything compounding from here.

Stars are a vanity metric. These four are the leading indicators of category ownership.
